Page:Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall.djvu/49

Rh upon this unfortunate subject. But her chum failed to see the significance of it, and the girl from the Red Mill had no opportunity of warning Helen. Mary Cox, too, was most friendly, and it seemed ungrateful to be anything but frank and pleasant with her. Not many big girls (so thought both Ruth and Helen) would have put themselves out to walk up to Briarwood Hall with two Infants and their baggage.

Through breaks in the cedar grove the girls began to catch glimpses of the brown old buildings of Briarwood Hall. Ivy masked the entire end of one of the buildings, and even ran up the chimneys. It had been cut away from the windows, and they showed brilliantly now with the descending sun shining redly upon them.

"It's a beautiful old place, Helen," sighed Ruth.

"I believe you!" agreed her chum, enthusiastically.

"It was originally a great house. That was the first building where the tower is," said Mary Cox, as they came out at last upon the more open lawn that gave approach to this side of the collection of buildings, which had been more recently built than the main house. They were built around a rectangular piece of turf called the campus. This, however, the newcomers discovered later, for they came up in the rear of the